Would Pujols Have Hit Over 60 Home Runs In Each Of The Last Several Seasons Had He Not Been Dealing

What baseball player would you rank as ,"What Could Have Been if Not For Drugs ", ahead of Josh Hamilton?

I think - in the long haul - Hamilton’s main impediment to his potential of coming a great baseball player was that he was injury-prone. Sure, I think maybe he could have had 5–6 more seasons, maybe (maybe) 1 at MVP-level, but that’s about it. What I’m saying is that would be my guess if he hadn’t been a drug addict at all.It’s tempting to say Babe Ruth, but his rapid decline happened at relatively late age and he played until a relatively late age for the times. In modern times, fitness would have helped with his leg problems, but you know… Babe Ruth. Who can complain.Same boat as Hamilton, I am hesitant to agree about Gooden and Strawberry. There’s a reason the HOF has a ten year playing requirement - players never pan out over the long run all the time. Was reading last night about the projected new contract for Bryce Harper is $400 million over 14 years. He’ll get it, but whoever it is I fear will overpay. Anyway, Gooden and Strawberry, same deal. For Gooden see: Vida Blue.Josh Gibson? I’ve read as much as I can find on the so-called Negro Leagues, and unfortunately but also kinda cool, greatness is measured in people being legends. Which he is - many feel he may have been the best hitter of all time - but he wore down due to his many-year heroin addiction. Then again, when MLB raided the Negro players, what they took was the youngest and the best. He was already… 32 or 33? That is to say, MLB raiding the players destroyed the Negro Leagues, so even if he had stayed there he wouldn’t have become famous in a household name sense. Amazing hitter, though.Hard to know these things. Baseball was very protected by the media for a very long time, and you weren’t going to keep your job reporting on team X if you aired their dirty laundry. Most of what we know comes anecdotally and at a distance of years, plus someone like Mickey Mantle was supposed to be wild and drunk in a Sinatra kinda way. It was that era. I am thinking of Eddie Matthews and Roger Maris too… oh, Bobby Bonds as well, all severe alcoholism. It’s just hard to tell with these guys. It’s difficult to create alternate careers for people, and you don’t know, with public perception still being about “milestones”, would we say differently if Player X had 100 more home runs?I look forward to other answers, I’m sure I missed some people.

Who is the greatest MLB player ever in your eyes and why do you feel that way?

This is a tough question and a great deal depends on how you answer the major question “How much have baseball players improved over time?” I don’t think I know enough about 19th Century players to include them and the everyday player versus Pitcher discussion also is a problem.Ignoring the major question and leaving out 19th Century players and Pitchers, I think the following players are candidates.Honus Wagner. He produced as much offensively as any player of the dead-ball era and was always among the best Shortstops in the game. Because he was a great Shortstop, I rate him higher than Cobb, who produced only a tiny bit more offense in that era.Babe Ruth. He was the best offensive player of his time. He was an OK corner outfielder. Because of him, we don’t have to consider similar players from the same era, such as Gehrig and Foxx. We can also leave out Ted Williams, whose major advantage over Ruth is that he struck out less. To me “struck out less” merits a yawn. Ruth had a previous career as an excellent Pitcher also.Willy Mays. He hit for both average and power, was an excellent baserunner and great Center Fielder and he played for a relatively long time. His weakness is that he did not get on base as frequently as Ruth or Williams. His career length and the number of quality years that he played give him the edge over Mantle, whose best few years were better and both of them were better than DiMaggio. The main thing that puts him over Henry Aaron was that almost everyone who was watching them play back in the day thought he was clearly better.Barry Bonds produced Williams-like numbers before he started producing Ruth-like numbers and he was a much better fielder than either of them. If ARod had come a bit closer, the fact that he was a great infielder would have put him past Bonds but I’ll go with Barry. The steroid issue looms over these players and their time.If one accepts the commonly held opinion that baseball players have improved at the rate of, say, track athletes, then I’d go with Bonds. But I don’t accept that and will give the boring answer that it is Ruth.